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stared down at me. A Waterstar map.
    These guys had their own disembarkation area. But did they have their own 3D rendering? Heck, by now they should have 4D. That’d keep Trevor busy for hours.
    Someone broke through the crowd and motioned for the soldiers in dark green to drop their weapons. She had long black hair and severe facial features. She seemed to pick apart every detail about me with her eyes before moving on to Sophia, to Trevor. A shiver of unease spread through me. I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed by our appearance or confused. She came up to Sophia and me and stared at both of us for an uncomfortable length of time. She was slight, too, with an almost elf-like body that made the whole staring thing rather comical.
    “You two are of Atlantean descent,” she said. Not a question. More like an accusation.
    “We are students of the Waterstar map,” Sophia said, ever the diplomat I’d never be.
    “But you
are
Atlantean,” the woman repeated.
    “Yes,” I said.
    The crowd of soldiers murmured, talking amongst themselves. Though their individual conversations remained quiet, the hum of them being spoken all at once turned into a dull roar.
    Pike looked around as if he considered each one a threat. “We’re just exploring some Link Piece connections. Nothing more.” His green eyes narrowed, body stiff. I could tell he wanted to bolt, or at least stop talking.
    “From the past?” the woman asked.
    The skin on my arms prickled at the way she said “past,” as though it were an insult or something to be suspicious about.
    Something’s not right.
    Trevor nodded. “Yes.”
    The woman looked to him. “You are not Atlantean.”
    My breath hitched. If Lemuria and Atlantis were still at war, and if she’d accepted Sophia and me, what would she and her people do to Trevor? Even if he disowned every part of his family following SeaSat5’s hijacking, he couldn’t change his Lemurian blood.
    Trevor stood his ground. “I don’t side with Lemuria.”
    The woman clicked her tongue and returned her attention to Sophia and I. “I am Germay. When did you come from?”
    “Somewhere in the 2010’s,” Pike supplied for us, answering my unspoken question. He didn’t trust them, either.
    “When are we now?” Dr. Hill asked.
    “3001… A.D., I believe you would say.”
    We’re enough into the future that they changed the dating system?
Great
.
    I sucked in a slow, deep breath. That’s pretty far ahead of us. Much farther than I think Dr. Hill had predicted, and definitely much farther than we’d been prepared for. We should turn around and leave before they say something that changes their past, or we learn something that accelerates our future.
    “What brings you here?” Germay asked.
    “We are exploring the Links in search of our missing people,” Sophia answered. “The Lemurians took them and have hidden them somewhere in time.”
    “You look on the wrong side of the war, soldier.” Germay’s eyes shot to Trevor. “Perhaps you should ask this one.”
    Trevor’s jaw set hard. His defection was much clearer than his attempt to deny what he was. Right now, he was as much a Lemurian as I was.
    “Trevor doesn’t side with them,” I reminded the room.
    Germay’s eyes still rested on Trevor. “We shall see.” She broke her gaze from Trevor and looked to the rest of us. “Come with me. We’ll meet with the Council to see what we can do for your search, and to send you home.”
    “You’re willing to help us?” Pike asked, doubt evident in every single syllable he spoke.
    I agreed. This was way too easy, way too straightforward. That same feeling I’d had when looking at the African idol gnawed into the lining of my stomach like bad Chinese food.
    “We help all travelers who stumble here on their search for something more,” Germay supplied.
    Except, you can’t cross over the exact same Link twice, unless you have a different Link Piece with which to do it—thereby making it not